The high resolution transmission electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy results of germanium nanocrystals embedded in SiO2 synthesized by rapid thermal processing (RTA) have been presented. From the results of samples with different Ge concentrations, it was concluded that there is a narrow window in the Ge concentration that can produce nanocrystals. We also showed that it is possible to vary RTA duration or temperature to produce Ge nanocrystals with varying sizes. Our results therefore suggest that it is possible to utilize (i) annealing duration and; (ii) temperature to tune crystal sizes for optoelectronic applications.